Contrast of Blanche and Stella

Sex and desire are key themes in the play ‘A Streetcar Named Desire’, of which highlight the differences between Stella and Blanche Dubois. Sex is a motif throughout the play which acts as a destructive force that signifies violence, mental degradation, the sullying of a good reputation, and financial ruin. Sex is viewed opposingly between Stella and Blanche; sex is a key attribute for Stella in her life as her relationship is based on sexual desire, which allows her to be accepted in 1940’s New Orleans as part of the working class. On the other hand, Blanche viewed sexual desire as a requirement to earn her own safety and protection - not for romantic or emotional means. Sex is the cohesion holding the marriage of Stella and Stanley together. During Scene 7, Stanley argues with Stella about Blanche while she is bathing, he explains how he has been asking around about Blanche and discovered she was banned from “hotel Flamingo” for sleeping around with multiple men, but the men “got wised up after two or three dates with her and then they quit, and she goes on to another, the same old lines, same old act, same old hooey!”. This proof explained Blanche’s desperation when she arrived at “Elysian Fields” as she had lost her positive, bourgeoisie reputation. Blanche lacks the emotional correlation between sex and desire, unlike Stella who simply desires a sexual relationship with Stanley. However, Blanche shows disgust over her behaviour after losing Belle Reve through her excessive bathing. At the beginning of Scene 7, Stanley is complaining to Stella over Blanche and her habit; he expresses his annoyance as the “temperature 100 on the nose, and she soaks herself in a hot tub”. Williams uses symbolism through Blanche’s continuous bathing to signify Blanche purifying herself from her sins. Although Blanche claims she bathes repeatedly to “calm her nerves”, though the real reason Williams creates this symbol is to show Blanche as wanting to cleanse herself from her past. Bathing ultimately symbolises Blanche’s guilty conscience. As well as the opposing views on sex between Blanche and Stella, they are also presented by Williams as character foils through their relationships with Stanley and Mitch. Stella does not hold a false image toward Stanley - she does pretend to be the woman she was in Belle Reve; she accepts her new societal position within her marriage. However, Blanche puts on a facade, especially in front of Mitch, though Mitch seems to enjoy the illusion Blanche creates for herself as she appears pure, clean and loyal. An alternative reading of Blanche’s sexual desire being purely for male protection, instead of love, could be linked to the contextual background of 1940s New Orleans as women were viewed solely as commodities at that time. Blanche created the perfect allusion of herself, specifically toward men, to ensure she maintained the same level of value she procured while living on the Belle Reve plantation - the image commonly linked to the archetypal southern belle. Opposingly, Stella accepted her new value when she married Stanley; a working-class man immigrant. In conclusion, Williams created the theme of sex and desire throughout the play to amplify Stella and Blanche as contrasting characters through their opposing views on sex and their dissimilar desires in relationships.

Perversity is the deliberate desire to behave in an unreasonable or unacceptable way. While normality means the opposite; the state of being socially “usual” by behaving typically or expected. Williams developed the themes of perversity and normality within ‘A Streetcar Named Desire’ to enunciate the contrast between Blanche and Stella. Tennessee Williams, during the 1940s, used A Streetcar Named Desire and the central theme of perversity to shed light on the troubles of domestic abuse and how it was handled. A contemporary audience today would view the motif of perversity differently compared to the audience of 1947 (when the play was first performed) as perversity has become significantly more normalised in modern society - mostly through media. Williams presents perversity opposingly between Blanche and Stella by their contrasting opinions on ‘unacceptable’ behaviour. This is evident in Scene 3 as a stage direction states that “Stanley stalks fiercely through the portieres into the bedroom. He crosses to the small white radio and snatches it off the table. With a shouted oath, he tosses the instrument out of the window”. Blanche and Stella expressed contrasting opinions towards Stanley’s violence. At first, Stella calls Stanley an “animal thing", although once Stanley apologised to Stella, she immediately forgave him and proceeded as though Stanley's behaviour was reasonable and expected from him - indicating that his violent behaviour is regular. William’s use of zoomorphism when describing Stanley’s violent behaviour (“animal thing”) may hold a contextual alternative reading as immigrants were viewed as lesser than Americans in the 1940s; animalistic. Blanche seemed to maintain a bourgeoisie attitude toward domestic abuse as she exclaims “lunacy, absolute lunacy!” toward Stanley's actions. Williams portrays Blanche with an authoritative opinion toward Stanely's violence as she repeats "lunacy", which suggests she feels as though Stanely had no right to hit Stella - she continued to view Stanley as socially inferior to herself, including Stella. This contrast in opinion between Blanche and Stella is further articulated through their strikingly different perspective on normality. Stella is presented to have contrasting ideas on normality compared to Blanche, as Stella seems to maintain a strong view of the new normality within society, shown by her leniency to a lower-class person holding authority over her. On the contrary, Blanche’s character highlights the theme of normality as she emphasised the idea that just wanting something to be true is not enough for it be really true. For example, Blanche exerts much of her efforts to make it seem that she still holds a southern belle value, however, with her reputation in Laurel the image she portrayed herself as contradicts the normality of her situation - a poor woman with no reliable place to stay. In summarisation, Williams presents Blanche and Stella as contrasting characters through their contrary opinions on perverseness (specifically toward the behaviour of men) and their contrasting perspectives on normality in New Orleans society.

The United States entered the twentieth century during a period of sweeping change. In fact, change and transformation were the norms in the first decade of what has since become known as the “American Century”. Before this change, the Southern American economy was primarily agrarian and based on the plantation culture of forced labour to raise crops and livestock. The stage before the “American Century” is now commonly known as “Old America”. In ‘A Streetcar Named Desire’ Williams presents Blanche as a representation of Old America, and Stella as a representation of the American Century (or New America) - resulting in the sisters becoming character foils. Williams further enunciates Stella and Blanche as contrasting characters through this drastic societal change as each sister adopts the expectations of the different eras in America. The women in Streetcar Named Desire play an important role in this play as it shows how Tennessee Williams views women during this time period. Women of the 1940s were meant to be weak-minded, pretty, and to be seen but not heard. Females were constantly disregarded by men as they were believed to be the lesser sex. By creating weak female characters, Williams plays with the appeals and attempts to show a mirror to the world of how society treats women. The reason Williams creates women in this fashion may be because he desired for everyone to see how women were treated in the time period he placed the play. In this play, Williams has Blanche state lines that would make the audience realise that she ultimately desires male attention. Blanche states lines such as “A woman’s charm is 50% illusion”. Blanche uses diction when discussing a “woman’s charm” to emphasise the point that no matter what she says or what she does, she is “charming” whoever she is talking to - Blanche wants Stanley or Mitch, or whoever else is around, to hear her and believe everything she says even if it is an “illusion”. Blanche also represents Old Southern America in the way that she “fought for it, bled for it, almost died for it”. Stella is presented to have a contrast of such adoration for the Old South as she left the Belle Reve Plantation even before it was beginning to demolish. Stella and Blanche are contrasting characters through their disparity in love for the Old South - Stella was able to escape the expectations and confinements of the Old Southern American society, whereas Blanche continued to thrive in the archetypal southern belle image, and the loss of such reputation led to her downfall to eventual insanity in Scene Eleven. A synopsis of the contrast between Blanche and Stella is explicitly shown by Williams through the distinction between Old and New America; Stella’s lack of love for the Old American South juxtaposes Blanche’s adoration for the southern belle effigy.